6 ms·

Italy rated one of the hardest countries for foreigners to settle in

ulfw 4y ago
Germany is on last place. Here is the actual survey: https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/expat-essentials-index-40247 https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/expat-essent... "Germany (52nd) does very badly in the Digital Life (48th), Housing (47th), and Language (49th) Subcategories. Expats are unhappy with the ease of getting high-speed internet access at home (24% vs. 11% globally) and the lack of cashless payment options (27% vs. 8% globally). Moreover, housing is both hard to afford (59% unhappy vs. 43% globally) and to find (56% unhappy vs. 27% globally). “It may take up to three months to find even a temporary accommodation,” says an expat from Poland. And everyday life is anything but easy if you don’t speak the language (46% unhappy vs. 32% globally)."
- monksy 4y ago
  If you are in Germany and are complaining about the cashless options, you're in the wrong place. That is a cultural thing for them. [Less so since in the last few years] Also, it's hard to complain that the difficultly for getting DeutscheKabel, DT, or 1&1 off their rear ins is a mark against the country.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    When I settled in 20 years ago, it was even worse, at least now shops and supermarkets do keep open after 6pm, and afternoons on Saturdays, on bigger cities. And like every expat, I had to at a given point having friends as "hostage" on the restaurant while hunting for an ATM, or been the "hostage" for others not yet used to the culture. Naturally we could have paid the bill and settled it later, but that is yet another matter regarding on the how to pay culture.
    - johnchristopher 4y ago
      For info: In Belgium, it is now mandatory for shopkeepers to provide digital means of payment to customers. Covid accelerated that.
    - brabel 4y ago
      The fact Germany seems to be resistant to use electronic payment options is specially interesting given the neighbours to the North, specially Sweden, are probably the most cashless societies anywhere.
      - Semaphor 4y ago
        It’s an anti-surveilance thing. Between the Nazis and the GDR’s Stasi we have some concerns there. It’s been getting a lot better with Covid and SumUp, though.
        monksy 4y ago
        > It’s an anti-surveilance thing. Between the Nazis and the GDR’s Stasi we have some concerns there. And that's one of the things I love your country for. It's the acceptance of personal consensual relationships/hedonism, and respect for the privacy/wellbeing. It's rather unfortunate at how you arrived at the understanding of that need.
- froh 4y ago
  Germany is a leading industry nation with a marked 10-15% population drop (birth rates) in the 1990, which resulted in said drop in school and high school diplomas in the 2010s, and now the same drop in academics available to the job market. this lack of workforce is exacerbated markedly by a massive drop out of qualified elders into retirement. and brains, brains with hands, are _the_ #1 ressource of an industrialized high tech nation. too bad immigration offices are understaffed, and foreigner-FUD is omnipresent outside big cities. and too bad some lobbies convinced rural areas that fibre optics and cell phone radiation are bad for them. I really can't be but sarcastic. sorry for the rant.
- luckylion 4y ago
  I'm a native German, and I agree with all those points, even when speaking the language perfectly. Add high taxes and a surprisingly corrupt government when you pull back the curtains and I'm thinking about leaving again.
  - sdze 4y ago
    Corrupt government? You must be living in another Germany.
    - ulfw 4y ago
      Someone could say an ex-German government leader working for the pipeline company he approved could be seen as corrupt.
      - sdze 4y ago
        And this is proof of a systemically corrupt government?
        tasubotadas 4y ago
        The cozyness of Auto industry with politicians is beyond anything.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      Our current chancellor had, when he was still mayor of Hamburg, a private meeting with bankers after which his tax office decided not to pursue that bank's criminal tax fraud, his party received significant donations from said bank, and hundreds of thousands of Euros were mysteriously found in his right hand man's safety deposit box. It's a different Germany. Scholz just can't remember, because his brain resets after each crime. And it's not just Scholz, it's wherever you look when the curtain is drawn back. Remember RBB?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- realworldperson 4y ago
  [dead]
throwayyy479087 4y ago
[flagged]
- jddj 4y ago
  I'll bite. Why?
jasfi 4y ago
The city/town you relocate to also has an impact. I think it's generally accepted that moving to the capital of a country is easier for foreigners.
- EduardoBautista 4y ago
  I think you are making the assumption that the capital city is the most diverse and open. This is not the case for Canada, Australia, and the USA just off the top my head. I wouldn’t say that the capitals are close minded, but they shouldn’t be the first option for easiest to integrate into by a foreigner. I recently moved to the UAE, and Dubai is considered more foreigner friendly than the capital, Abu Dhabi.
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    You’re correct that “the” capital city of those countries is maybe not ideal, but “a” capital city in Australia or Canada could also mean Melbourne/Sydney or Toronto/Vancouver. I agree with your general point, but I think it’s more about finding large cities that are likely to have an expat community.
    - flockonus 4y ago
      The capital of BC is Victoria btw, counter-intuitive yes.. and i can't tell about easy to settle down, but i've seen more ppl from Victoria -> Vancouver, and can't think of a single one the other way around. I'd assume big heterogenous centres in general are easier, being a capital happens to be a correlation.
  - mastazi 4y ago
    IMHO this is also the case in Italy - Milan is more foreigner friendly, compared to Rome. (I grew up in Rome and have visited Milan on many occasions as I have friends who live there).
  - jasfi 4y ago
    You're right. The larger and more diverse cities are what you should look for. I had other, specific countries in mind when I wrote that, where I thought it applied.
mitchbob 4y ago
https://archive.ph/LLoh9 https://archive.ph/LLoh9
- rstuart4133 4y ago
  It's a rewrite of his: https://www.internations.org/press/press-release/d-40346 https://www.internations.org/press/press-release/d-40346 which everyone can view.
Havoc 4y ago
Surprised how few English speaking countries are in the top 10. Kenya in top 10 figures though - friends were there for a couple years and absolutely loved it (only left because work required it)
- 4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
  Or that's just an excuse -- not to seem un-PC.
albertopv 4y ago
Italian bureaucracy is very hard for everyone in Italy, sadly no politician really want to change it, many jobs are at stake. Public departments don't talk each other so people must transfer data theirself by hand. IT ignorance is a thing: happened to me, courthouse asked paper copy of a document when I provided a signed electronic one I got from Internal Affairs Ministry website because, as far as they told me, they didn't know how to verify its legitimacy. My former wife stayed at home when pregnant becase of illness caused by pregnancy, but due to complex laws no one knew if it was plain sickness or early motherhood period (they have very different consequences for the job after child birth), but we had to file a request stating the reason to stay at home. Public office people just told us "try something and let's see". I could go on forever...
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  Note that at least thelocal.dk, the Danish equivalent, is nowhere near representative of the actual country. Hard pass on thelocal.it as any true source
  - agurk 4y ago
    As someone who's casually browsed the local for different countries before, I'm interested if you could expand on how they're not representative? Are there better English language equivalents you know of?
    - heywhatupboys 4y ago
      > I'm interested if you could expand on how they're not representative? This is going to be very hard to explain, but basically imagine when you read something written by a Chinese newspaper about your country, it's just off, like focusing on the wrong issue that isin't really seem as a problem, or interviewing people that aren't really important. Like this one: https://www.thelocal.dk/20230324/why-are-waste-containers-overflowing-on-copenhagens-streets/ https://www.thelocal.dk/20230324/why-are-waste-containers-ov... if you read the Danish sources, it is about work hours yes, but it is really about avoiding traffic in the city at later stages of the day (I picked an article at random) > Are there better English language equivalents you know of? with today's AI, I think translating is doing a great job tbh
isodev 4y ago
It’s curious how adding civil liberties to the list of criteria would dramatically change the rankings. For example, is Saudi Arabia still in the TOP 10 countries if I’m gay, a woman or trans?
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  not everthing is about LGBTQIA+ .... I think adding in national origin or skin color or religion is more pressing and common.
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    not everthing is about LGBTQIA+ Sure, if you aren't in these groups you have the luxury of completely freaking ignoring it. I'm bisexual all the time. Transfolks are trans all the time. All queer folks are queer all the time even if you can't tell they are queer. So yes, everything is about it as much as you are always gonna be whatever nationality you are (even if you aren't legally a citizen), you'll always have your basic skin color, and so on.
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      Well said. It's such a sad situation that nearly everyone who is not queer doesn't give a fuck about being queer. Wonder if their mind would change if they ever found out they weren't cishet. But just in general I wish people would care about groups they're not a part of. Selfishness is part of nature but it's so disheartening to see it on this scale.
      - heywhatupboys 4y ago
        > It's such a sad situation that nearly everyone who is not queer doesn't give a fuck about being queer. You gotta be kidding, the Western world has immense support for queer people, especially recently.
        Broken_Hippo 4y ago
Gatsky 4y ago
Given the rapidly ageing Italian demographics, this is particularly crazy. Italy needs to make some changes or risk being a defunct nation state before the middle of the century.
- qalmakka 4y ago
  The main issue is that old people and young people have very different interests and concerns, and demographics put young people at a disadvantage. Politicians can win elections by just targeting people over 45, which mostly don't care about the housing, wage and employment crisis, and care mostly about paying less taxes on wealth and retirement.
thefz 4y ago
Bureaucracy in Italy is bad. Why? Public workers have zero incentive in making anything even slightly better. You are told to do one thing one way, and invest nothing in even understanding the thing, let alone making it better. It is like this in the public, and in the semi-public as well. Once the wage comes in, interest dies. For the same reason, firing a public employee who is under performing is almost impossible. We just move them around.
- drooopy 4y ago
  This kind of bureaucracy and the mentality of public sector employees is more of a southern European phenomenon, not just Italian. I've spent most of my life living between Italy and Greece (being 50% both in heritage) and the past 7 years in Portugal, and it's all the same down here. It feels like the public sector is holding those states hostages in the 1970s. This is of course in stark contrast to the experience that I've had while I was living in the UK for a few years in the late 2010s.
  - hsjqllzlfkf 4y ago
    Interesting that you mention Portugal here. I was born and raised there, and though not great, I don't remember it being as bad as the horror stories I'm reading about Italy from other comments.
  - BarbaPeru 4y ago
    I do not know if it is the same in other countries, but in Italy public sector has been used for decades by bad politicians for paying political favors, "if you bring me votes of you family I'll manage to find a job to your son", the result is an oversized apparatus of people that do not like their work, work badly (if they work at all) and try to spent time in order to arrive to payslip day. In Italy the bureaucracy is become a monster that try to justify its existence creating other bureaucracy. At least half of italian bureaucracy workers are redundant. And I'm not a supporter of the private sector at all.
dotcoma 4y ago
Italian here; for whatever it’s worth, I myself feel more at home in a number of European countries, for example in Spain (especially in Catalonia) and Portugal, but also in Denmark and Sweden… I would recommend foreigners to move to Italy only if Italy is very strong in their field of interest, for example in fashion, food, wine, art o the opera.
liendolucas 4y ago
I've been trying to get my driving licence since last October. Bureaucracy is way beyond nightmare here. In order to get a driving licence you need to pass a theory test which you can only answer incorrectly 3 of 30 questions (which is plagued of tricky questions). But let's say that is ok, are the rules to be "idoneous" at driving. In order to actually sit down for this test (which it only takes 20 minutes in front of the computer) you need to first make an appointment, then go to the motor vehicle department and THEN there make the real appointment for the test. For the first appointment there can be 1 or 2 months wait. To sit down in the computer 2 or 3 months. No one ever will answer the telephone, as a matter of fact all the contacts in the official website are incorrect (the mail address does not exist and the phone number is actually missing a digit). If you show up at the department, no one would actually talk to you if you do not have an appointment, even if the office is empty. If you actually manage to talk to someone they will say that they can't do anything, that everything is with appointment from the website and refuse to help you, they might even treat you rudely as if you were the cause of the problem. To make any appointment, you need to log in in a crappy site and manually click each day in the calendar until you get lucky and find a day that is free for selection. So if from today two months in time there is an empty slot, you need to click 60 times the calendar. If you have read "The Trial" by Kafka, this is 100 times worst. One last thing that goes beyond comprehension. If you come from Argentina (like I do) and you have a valid driver's licence you can get the Italian one by some paperwork only before you get residency but not AFTER. If you want the licence after getting residency, you need to go through this hell.
- trilbyglens 4y ago
  Wow. I just did my license here in the Czech Republic (after driving semi-illegally for 15 years with no issies lol) and it was dodgey but painless. I paid a dude $500 bucks to drive with me for an hour and rubber stamp my ability, and then for the written test, I had a "translator" provided, despite me speaking Czech. She basically told me all the answers as we went through thr test hah!
  - liendolucas 4y ago
    I'm actually considering getting it elsewhere in the EU and end this shitty thing, so if anyone has any suggestions, they are welcome. The funny thing is that I already know how to drive, so my problem is purely theoretical and bureaucratic.
raziel414 4y ago
As someone that's lived in Japan for 5 years, I'm surprised to see that Japan is second to last. The article mentions that "70% find it hard to learn" Japanese, which is a completely reasonable complaint, and I can understand why it motivates people to leave. But anecdotally at least, I've had a great experience living here. Many of the civil servants in Tokyo speak English, which makes getting settled pretty easy, and a lot of services have English speaking staff.
ilkke 4y ago
Here's the index in question, that amazingly wasn't linked in the article https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/ease-of-settling-in-index-40244 https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/ease-of-sett... Edit: accidentally linked to cities list instead of countries
patchymcnoodles 4y ago
Just to see it from another angle. I'm german and moved to italy 1.5 years ago. And the bureaucracy was refreshing for me. Everything was so easy compared to germany. I only visited an office ones, the rest was all with digital signature (including permissions for building a house). And it was also much quicker. Also getting permissions for building a house was fast (59 days, germany sometimes months). But yes there is one hard thing: As Non-Schengen-Member you have to speak the language. That is a big barrier for many people. Germany doesn't care and even pays for language courses. As a founder in germany myself, that makes things so much easier. Hiring new people from all over the world, was no issue at all (beside that the foreigner office often does not speak english). There is another thing, maybe some italians here know that: I'm in north italy, is there maybe a big difference to south italy?
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Yes, enormous
throwaway6992 4y ago
[dead]

ulfw 4y ago

Germany is on last place. Here is the actual survey: https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/expat-essentials-index-40247 https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/expat-essent... "Germany (52nd) does very badly in the Digital Life (48th), Housing (47th), and Language (49th) Subcategories. Expats are unhappy with the ease of getting high-speed internet access at home (24% vs. 11% globally) and the lack of cashless payment options (27% vs. 8% globally). Moreover, housing is both hard to afford (59% unhappy vs. 43% globally) and to find (56% unhappy vs. 27% globally). “It may take up to three months to find even a temporary accommodation,” says an expat from Poland. And everyday life is anything but easy if you don’t speak the language (46% unhappy vs. 32% globally)."

monksy 4y ago
If you are in Germany and are complaining about the cashless options, you're in the wrong place. That is a cultural thing for them. [Less so since in the last few years] Also, it's hard to complain that the difficultly for getting DeutscheKabel, DT, or 1&1 off their rear ins is a mark against the country.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  When I settled in 20 years ago, it was even worse, at least now shops and supermarkets do keep open after 6pm, and afternoons on Saturdays, on bigger cities. And like every expat, I had to at a given point having friends as "hostage" on the restaurant while hunting for an ATM, or been the "hostage" for others not yet used to the culture. Naturally we could have paid the bill and settled it later, but that is yet another matter regarding on the how to pay culture.
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    For info: In Belgium, it is now mandatory for shopkeepers to provide digital means of payment to customers. Covid accelerated that.
  - brabel 4y ago
    The fact Germany seems to be resistant to use electronic payment options is specially interesting given the neighbours to the North, specially Sweden, are probably the most cashless societies anywhere.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      It’s an anti-surveilance thing. Between the Nazis and the GDR’s Stasi we have some concerns there. It’s been getting a lot better with Covid and SumUp, though.
      - monksy 4y ago
        > It’s an anti-surveilance thing. Between the Nazis and the GDR’s Stasi we have some concerns there. And that's one of the things I love your country for. It's the acceptance of personal consensual relationships/hedonism, and respect for the privacy/wellbeing. It's rather unfortunate at how you arrived at the understanding of that need.
froh 4y ago
Germany is a leading industry nation with a marked 10-15% population drop (birth rates) in the 1990, which resulted in said drop in school and high school diplomas in the 2010s, and now the same drop in academics available to the job market. this lack of workforce is exacerbated markedly by a massive drop out of qualified elders into retirement. and brains, brains with hands, are _the_ #1 ressource of an industrialized high tech nation. too bad immigration offices are understaffed, and foreigner-FUD is omnipresent outside big cities. and too bad some lobbies convinced rural areas that fibre optics and cell phone radiation are bad for them. I really can't be but sarcastic. sorry for the rant.
luckylion 4y ago
I'm a native German, and I agree with all those points, even when speaking the language perfectly. Add high taxes and a surprisingly corrupt government when you pull back the curtains and I'm thinking about leaving again.
- sdze 4y ago
  Corrupt government? You must be living in another Germany.
  - ulfw 4y ago
    Someone could say an ex-German government leader working for the pipeline company he approved could be seen as corrupt.
    - sdze 4y ago
      And this is proof of a systemically corrupt government?
      - tasubotadas 4y ago
        The cozyness of Auto industry with politicians is beyond anything.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Our current chancellor had, when he was still mayor of Hamburg, a private meeting with bankers after which his tax office decided not to pursue that bank's criminal tax fraud, his party received significant donations from said bank, and hundreds of thousands of Euros were mysteriously found in his right hand man's safety deposit box. It's a different Germany. Scholz just can't remember, because his brain resets after each crime. And it's not just Scholz, it's wherever you look when the curtain is drawn back. Remember RBB?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
realworldperson 4y ago
[dead]

throwayyy479087 4y ago

[flagged]

jddj 4y ago
I'll bite. Why?

jasfi 4y ago

The city/town you relocate to also has an impact. I think it's generally accepted that moving to the capital of a country is easier for foreigners.

EduardoBautista 4y ago
I think you are making the assumption that the capital city is the most diverse and open. This is not the case for Canada, Australia, and the USA just off the top my head. I wouldn’t say that the capitals are close minded, but they shouldn’t be the first option for easiest to integrate into by a foreigner. I recently moved to the UAE, and Dubai is considered more foreigner friendly than the capital, Abu Dhabi.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  You’re correct that “the” capital city of those countries is maybe not ideal, but “a” capital city in Australia or Canada could also mean Melbourne/Sydney or Toronto/Vancouver. I agree with your general point, but I think it’s more about finding large cities that are likely to have an expat community.
  - flockonus 4y ago
    The capital of BC is Victoria btw, counter-intuitive yes.. and i can't tell about easy to settle down, but i've seen more ppl from Victoria -> Vancouver, and can't think of a single one the other way around. I'd assume big heterogenous centres in general are easier, being a capital happens to be a correlation.
- mastazi 4y ago
  IMHO this is also the case in Italy - Milan is more foreigner friendly, compared to Rome. (I grew up in Rome and have visited Milan on many occasions as I have friends who live there).
- jasfi 4y ago
  You're right. The larger and more diverse cities are what you should look for. I had other, specific countries in mind when I wrote that, where I thought it applied.

mitchbob 4y ago

https://archive.ph/LLoh9 https://archive.ph/LLoh9

rstuart4133 4y ago
It's a rewrite of his: https://www.internations.org/press/press-release/d-40346 https://www.internations.org/press/press-release/d-40346 which everyone can view.

Havoc 4y ago

Surprised how few English speaking countries are in the top 10. Kenya in top 10 figures though - friends were there for a couple years and absolutely loved it (only left because work required it)

4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
Or that's just an excuse -- not to seem un-PC.

albertopv 4y ago

Italian bureaucracy is very hard for everyone in Italy, sadly no politician really want to change it, many jobs are at stake. Public departments don't talk each other so people must transfer data theirself by hand. IT ignorance is a thing: happened to me, courthouse asked paper copy of a document when I provided a signed electronic one I got from Internal Affairs Ministry website because, as far as they told me, they didn't know how to verify its legitimacy. My former wife stayed at home when pregnant becase of illness caused by pregnancy, but due to complex laws no one knew if it was plain sickness or early motherhood period (they have very different consequences for the job after child birth), but we had to file a request stating the reason to stay at home. Public office people just told us "try something and let's see". I could go on forever...

heywhatupboys 4y ago
Note that at least thelocal.dk, the Danish equivalent, is nowhere near representative of the actual country. Hard pass on thelocal.it as any true source
- agurk 4y ago
  As someone who's casually browsed the local for different countries before, I'm interested if you could expand on how they're not representative? Are there better English language equivalents you know of?
  - heywhatupboys 4y ago
    > I'm interested if you could expand on how they're not representative? This is going to be very hard to explain, but basically imagine when you read something written by a Chinese newspaper about your country, it's just off, like focusing on the wrong issue that isin't really seem as a problem, or interviewing people that aren't really important. Like this one: https://www.thelocal.dk/20230324/why-are-waste-containers-overflowing-on-copenhagens-streets/ https://www.thelocal.dk/20230324/why-are-waste-containers-ov... if you read the Danish sources, it is about work hours yes, but it is really about avoiding traffic in the city at later stages of the day (I picked an article at random) > Are there better English language equivalents you know of? with today's AI, I think translating is doing a great job tbh

isodev 4y ago

It’s curious how adding civil liberties to the list of criteria would dramatically change the rankings. For example, is Saudi Arabia still in the TOP 10 countries if I’m gay, a woman or trans?

heywhatupboys 4y ago
not everthing is about LGBTQIA+ .... I think adding in national origin or skin color or religion is more pressing and common.
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  not everthing is about LGBTQIA+ Sure, if you aren't in these groups you have the luxury of completely freaking ignoring it. I'm bisexual all the time. Transfolks are trans all the time. All queer folks are queer all the time even if you can't tell they are queer. So yes, everything is about it as much as you are always gonna be whatever nationality you are (even if you aren't legally a citizen), you'll always have your basic skin color, and so on.
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    Well said. It's such a sad situation that nearly everyone who is not queer doesn't give a fuck about being queer. Wonder if their mind would change if they ever found out they weren't cishet. But just in general I wish people would care about groups they're not a part of. Selfishness is part of nature but it's so disheartening to see it on this scale.
    - heywhatupboys 4y ago
      > It's such a sad situation that nearly everyone who is not queer doesn't give a fuck about being queer. You gotta be kidding, the Western world has immense support for queer people, especially recently.
      - Broken_Hippo 4y ago

Gatsky 4y ago

Given the rapidly ageing Italian demographics, this is particularly crazy. Italy needs to make some changes or risk being a defunct nation state before the middle of the century.

qalmakka 4y ago
The main issue is that old people and young people have very different interests and concerns, and demographics put young people at a disadvantage. Politicians can win elections by just targeting people over 45, which mostly don't care about the housing, wage and employment crisis, and care mostly about paying less taxes on wealth and retirement.

thefz 4y ago

Bureaucracy in Italy is bad. Why? Public workers have zero incentive in making anything even slightly better. You are told to do one thing one way, and invest nothing in even understanding the thing, let alone making it better. It is like this in the public, and in the semi-public as well. Once the wage comes in, interest dies. For the same reason, firing a public employee who is under performing is almost impossible. We just move them around.

drooopy 4y ago
This kind of bureaucracy and the mentality of public sector employees is more of a southern European phenomenon, not just Italian. I've spent most of my life living between Italy and Greece (being 50% both in heritage) and the past 7 years in Portugal, and it's all the same down here. It feels like the public sector is holding those states hostages in the 1970s. This is of course in stark contrast to the experience that I've had while I was living in the UK for a few years in the late 2010s.
- hsjqllzlfkf 4y ago
  Interesting that you mention Portugal here. I was born and raised there, and though not great, I don't remember it being as bad as the horror stories I'm reading about Italy from other comments.
- BarbaPeru 4y ago
  I do not know if it is the same in other countries, but in Italy public sector has been used for decades by bad politicians for paying political favors, "if you bring me votes of you family I'll manage to find a job to your son", the result is an oversized apparatus of people that do not like their work, work badly (if they work at all) and try to spent time in order to arrive to payslip day. In Italy the bureaucracy is become a monster that try to justify its existence creating other bureaucracy. At least half of italian bureaucracy workers are redundant. And I'm not a supporter of the private sector at all.

dotcoma 4y ago

Italian here; for whatever it’s worth, I myself feel more at home in a number of European countries, for example in Spain (especially in Catalonia) and Portugal, but also in Denmark and Sweden… I would recommend foreigners to move to Italy only if Italy is very strong in their field of interest, for example in fashion, food, wine, art o the opera.

liendolucas 4y ago

I've been trying to get my driving licence since last October. Bureaucracy is way beyond nightmare here. In order to get a driving licence you need to pass a theory test which you can only answer incorrectly 3 of 30 questions (which is plagued of tricky questions). But let's say that is ok, are the rules to be "idoneous" at driving. In order to actually sit down for this test (which it only takes 20 minutes in front of the computer) you need to first make an appointment, then go to the motor vehicle department and THEN there make the real appointment for the test. For the first appointment there can be 1 or 2 months wait. To sit down in the computer 2 or 3 months. No one ever will answer the telephone, as a matter of fact all the contacts in the official website are incorrect (the mail address does not exist and the phone number is actually missing a digit). If you show up at the department, no one would actually talk to you if you do not have an appointment, even if the office is empty. If you actually manage to talk to someone they will say that they can't do anything, that everything is with appointment from the website and refuse to help you, they might even treat you rudely as if you were the cause of the problem. To make any appointment, you need to log in in a crappy site and manually click each day in the calendar until you get lucky and find a day that is free for selection. So if from today two months in time there is an empty slot, you need to click 60 times the calendar. If you have read "The Trial" by Kafka, this is 100 times worst. One last thing that goes beyond comprehension. If you come from Argentina (like I do) and you have a valid driver's licence you can get the Italian one by some paperwork only before you get residency but not AFTER. If you want the licence after getting residency, you need to go through this hell.

trilbyglens 4y ago
Wow. I just did my license here in the Czech Republic (after driving semi-illegally for 15 years with no issies lol) and it was dodgey but painless. I paid a dude $500 bucks to drive with me for an hour and rubber stamp my ability, and then for the written test, I had a "translator" provided, despite me speaking Czech. She basically told me all the answers as we went through thr test hah!
- liendolucas 4y ago
  I'm actually considering getting it elsewhere in the EU and end this shitty thing, so if anyone has any suggestions, they are welcome. The funny thing is that I already know how to drive, so my problem is purely theoretical and bureaucratic.

raziel414 4y ago

As someone that's lived in Japan for 5 years, I'm surprised to see that Japan is second to last. The article mentions that "70% find it hard to learn" Japanese, which is a completely reasonable complaint, and I can understand why it motivates people to leave. But anecdotally at least, I've had a great experience living here. Many of the civil servants in Tokyo speak English, which makes getting settled pretty easy, and a lot of services have English speaking staff.

ilkke 4y ago

Here's the index in question, that amazingly wasn't linked in the article https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/ease-of-settling-in-index-40244 https://www.internations.org/expat-insider/2022/ease-of-sett... Edit: accidentally linked to cities list instead of countries

patchymcnoodles 4y ago

Just to see it from another angle. I'm german and moved to italy 1.5 years ago. And the bureaucracy was refreshing for me. Everything was so easy compared to germany. I only visited an office ones, the rest was all with digital signature (including permissions for building a house). And it was also much quicker. Also getting permissions for building a house was fast (59 days, germany sometimes months). But yes there is one hard thing: As Non-Schengen-Member you have to speak the language. That is a big barrier for many people. Germany doesn't care and even pays for language courses. As a founder in germany myself, that makes things so much easier. Hiring new people from all over the world, was no issue at all (beside that the foreigner office often does not speak english). There is another thing, maybe some italians here know that: I'm in north italy, is there maybe a big difference to south italy?

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Yes, enormous

throwaway6992 4y ago

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